Guys just saw this on TV. Harvey Norman is having a 40% sale on all Toshiba laptops (no other brands get discount). The sale lasts until Sunday.
The ad specifies that it is NOT "up to 40%" but "40% off every Toshiba". It also says only at participating stores but didn't specify which one aren't in it but seeing how its a TV ad, I'm assuming that its the majority.
Despite having been a heavy buyer of the sort of stuff they sell, I haven't been in a Harvey Norman store for many many years (at least 6) … since it dawned on slow-coach-me how high their prices were!
For people in Vic, it appears Nunawading are the only store with C650Ds left in stock, as of 3 hours ago they had at least 4. Don't want it enough to drive over there so I'm not getting one.
Preston Bell st store have quite a few of the low-end C series i3 models in stock, cheapest is $408 after discount. The guy will let you talk him down quite a bit more for display models too, someone in there at the same time as me got a display qosmio for $100 off the already 40% off price.
Hmm, I just went there, and I saw no Toshibas under 677 bucks after '40% discount'. The 677 dollar one was a celeron as well =S. This was at 2:40pm. And they also came with 'bonus' surge adaptor, 24month warranty and internet security (Norton I think).
Starting to sound like a rort sale, would be good to see if anyone actually got a bargain ?
Please post your model and what you paid.
like I said above: I got a C650 for $449. Not a huge bargain since an Acer equivalent (eMachines e732) is $500 (after cash back).
Still waiting…
A few of the Cheaper machines in stock at Joyce Mayne - Warrawong.
Sale also at Domayne (40% off RRP)
They could be the stolen laptops. I heard someone stole 200 Laptops from Toshiba's Warehouse at Homebush not long ago, just near my old office.
I'm not sure if you're an idiot or just trolling. Obviously this promotion is a collaboration between Toshiba and HN.
I'm not sure you're in a position to be calling other people idiots!
we've had toshiba laptops before and the 3 we bought, they are all slow and useless so i'm just concerned with 'toshiba laptops' in general unless the specs are high up i wouldn't have to worry about slowness 2 years later..
I've never had ANY brand of laptop that wasn't pretty much useless 2 years later.
I disagree with this. I've got a school Toshiba laptop over 4 years old now, and keeping it clean, reinstalled windows a couple of times for good measure, it runs very nicely. Maybe you don't know how to use a computer properly.
http://www.harveynorman.com.au/product/1256972847909/toshiba…
This would be $1399 / 40% = $839.40 ? or is the 40% off already included and makes it $1399?
Prices on website are original, so if you go to an honest store (there aren't many…) you'll get it for $839.40. Otherwise you're looking at RRP - 40%
that looks pretty cool, how does the keyboard work ' via touch screen keyboard ' ?
it would be 40% off so then $830 then - thats how i interpreted it
Yeah its like 2 ipads for the price of one, gunna go have a look tonight.
Only problem I can see is 3.5 hour battery life due to the 2 screens.
All you people having a whinge about Harvey Norman's pricing obviously haven't heard of franchises.
ALL OF THE HN STORES ARE FRANCHISED AND GERRY HARVEY DOESN'T TELL THEM HOW TO PRICE STOCK.
Let me break this down for you:
-Stock is ordered direct from the supplier by each individual store. Unless there is a sale coming on a specific item, in which case head office FORCES the stores to take EXTRA stock to fill the demand. They will NEVER advertise and purposely not stock an item as this is ILLEGAL.
-The supplier will tell HN what the RRP on the product is.
-The stock arrives at the stores receiving bay and is unpacked and inputed into the system. At this time, the price of the item is determined by the RRP given by the supplier.
Since the stores sort out their own stock with barely any input from head office (except in the case of some catalogue items); just because the store you went to wasn't carrying the models you wanted, doesn't mean Gerry is ripping you off. If the stated RRP is higher than the one on the website, have you ever thought of asking someone and informing them of the lower RRP? It's possible that an RRP has come down and a store hasn't been notified or done their job properly.
How do I know all this? My partner used to be the operations manager at a HN store.
Is HN more expensive? Yes it is if you don't ask for a discount. These days who buys technology without asking for a better price anyway?
Is Gerry Harvey still a w*nk despite all I've said? Yes he is, and he's proven it many times.
Seriously the way some of you guys are bitching, I'm surprised you don't go crying on the internet about Foodworks charging full price for a snickers.
PS: I buy all my computer gear from Umart unless HN has a massive sale like this.
cool story bro!
LOL, to everyone, I present you Gerry Harvey
are you mad ?
tl;dr
Umm, 13 negs???
I'll concede it's a bit of a rant, but I can't see anything in there that's factually incorrect!
TOSHIBA: Hey Gerry, let's have a sale!
GERRY : OK, but I'm going to do it in the following way -
1. No price uniformity between stores. The little franchises can rip off their small town customers.
2. Tell potential buyers that they 'really need a more powerful unit', no matter what they are looking at.
3. Mark up all accessories to the hilt, eg laptop bags @$49 with a pretend reduction from $99.
4. If the customer looks like they fail credit payments, give them credit! We make more $ when they fail!
5. Push extended warranty, antivirus, backup and other guff software upon customers.
6. If all else fails, suggest a non-Toshiba with higher margin.
7. Play REALLY DUMB if anyone gets suspicious about our 'techniques'.
8. Smile a lot, but only have 2 monkeys maximum per IT dept. Helps us keep control.
TOSHIBA: Gee Gerry, you really are a Mod: Foul L@nguage
Giggles, get your facts straight. I've worked as a salesperson in all types of industries and it's always the same. Go in armed with facts and knowledge and you won't get ripped off. Just because someone offers you a warranty or bag, doesn't mean they're trying to f*ck you over. I'd happily pay $50 extra on top of my laptop purchase for a warranty, bag and anti-virus because they're all things I'd buy anyway. Might as well get them for a discounted priced negotiated into the cost of your new laptop.
And yes, Gerry really is a Mod: Foul L@nguage
You buy anti-virus…….??
Are you a manager of an IT department at Harvey Norman?
I don't work for Harvey Norman, but my partner used to be in management. I don't actually even shop at Harvey Norman unless it's cheaper. There's lots of debates about paid antivirus vs free stuff and I choose to use Trend Micro. At a cost of $20 for 3 years last time I bought it, it has served me well.
As someone that has been heavily involved in the retail industry, I find it frustrating that people would slander any business because they don't know how things work, so I thought I would shed some light. I'm sure there are people that have been ripped off by Harvey Norman before, but it's the same for most stores. Every retail chain has their negatives. I for one can't stand Gamedude.
Oh the truth comes out. Thanks for your unbiased comments Shirokaze. Someone attacking your partners unethical businesses practices will surely result in a fair and level headed view from you.
lazed, i upranked you as i agree with the comment.
but i thought you agreed with shirokaze before? the bit about 'stop complaining about overpriced stuff, just accept it and walk away'
?
I don't think I did..I only replied twice to this thread..or are you referring to a different post?
If you go to any computer store other than Harvey Norman, they will NOT try to upsell you once they can tell you know what you're talking about. Harvey Norman staff are so screwed in the head that they'll tell somebody who comes in with very specific requirements that they clearly UNDERSTAND THEMSELVES that they need an i7 for email. No other stores do that.
That's fair enough. In a commission based environment, there are always salespeople who will be dishonest to try grab those few dollars extra.
The problem is that HN trains their staff to help those that don't know anything about technology. Some salespeople just don't know when to back off or how to deal with knowledgeable customers unfortunately.
Their training regime follows the classic rules for qualifying a customer.
-Get to know the customer and what they will use the system for.
-Select a few systems that meet their requirements and JUSTIFY why they need a particular spec referencing back to their original needs.
In my opinion, HN staff just don't know when to back off when they encounter someone that already knows what they want, because they're just going through the motions of what they were taught to do to help satisfy the common customer.
And that's the problem. Staff should not be like trained monkeys. It's as bad as when you need to call, for example, your ISP, and they can't answer a question that doesn't fit in with their script.
That is NOT an acceptable method of sales or customer service, and is far from a level of skill I ever would have accepted when hiring in the field. I would never have hired somebody who would have cost us sales from knowledgeable customers, as when dealt with right, they're the easiest to sell to with the least problems.
sounds like "Managers Secrets REVEALED" really upset you! :)
I think a good mix of truth and humour is fairly easy to see? Most of the stuff Harvey is accused of if because his franchises are among the worst in the country for 'sales with backup profit'. This is a Bargain website, so I think comments showing how Harvey's try to stooge people are welcome.
How did you get your anti virus for $20?????????????
Hey all, Thanks for the heads up on this deal. Went in to look at the C660/01c , and what do u know, "we have sold out of that stock, next model up is $799". After i made young 18yr old sales boy have a look he produced one from out the back. Discounted to $330, what a bargain.
u got lucky. he told me sold out everywhere!
It was advertised $299 @ Chadstone HN, price matched $284.05 @ OWs around the corner.
What a bargain! Just bought two laptops for work. Got the L650/017 models i5 480 / Blu Ray / 1gb graphics for $775 each. Best price elsewhere is $1000. Can't see what the naysayers are whingeing about. For anyone interested Harvey Norman Bundall have heaps of stock and according to a staff member they had 700 Toshiba units before the sale started.
Managed to get this model for $1379. Don't buy extended warranty from HN. Extended warranty directly from Toshiba is cheaper and international.
http://www.mytoshiba.com.au/products/notebooks/satellite/p50…
You did get onsite right ?
Great price. I have a far lower range P500 and paid more (though I was a naughty little soon-to-be bargain hunter back then, I wanted it so badly I bought it on release day)
that's the thing, once you start getting bargains and becoming more savvy as a shopper you seem repulsed by RRP and the notion of paying full price for things.
Yeah, would never buy a laptop on release day again, that's for sure. :P
Seems like a good deal. Just hope you don't have the same experience I had when I went to buy a discounted notebook from Harvey Norman (was hounded to take the extended warranty though I didn't want it).
I hate when they try and push it on you. Aggressive sales tactics is one sure way to break a sale with me. Just gotta stand firm and say definitely NOT. They might mistake me for being weak or placid, or even playing up naivety, but they don't realise that they are dealing with Dr Scrooge until I break their guard.
Best way of dealing with that is walk away, go up to the next salesperson, and tell them if they want a free sale, just tap up the invoice, and you don't want all of the extra crap. Has always worked.
About a month ago i bought a ASUS from Harvey Norman Auban, i never intended to do so but was there to look at their ovens. The laptop had a ticket price of 2600 i could get it at penta for 2300.
I spoke with a guy in the factory seconds section and he was really helpful he said he will give it to me for $2000 with a extra 4gig ram and 2 year extended warranty.
I walked across the road to the Computer section in the main store and the sales guy wanted to do me the same deal for 2600 then 2400 then when i told him about the deal his colleague across the road offered me he didnt believe me and called and confirmed it. He wasn’t very happy about it because he said he isnt making any commission now.
So i gather the sales guy would of made 600$ commission if i agreed on the original price.
So i gather the sales guy would of made 600$ commission if i agreed on the original price.
It appears HN would have made $600 gross profit (GP) - a 23% margin on $2600 or a 30% markup on your assumed cost price of $2000, whichever way you prefer to think of it.
A commission based sales guy would typically make 30% of the GP. Obviously this incentivises them to sell products with greater GP.
This is an interesting point. Commission sales do not encourage honesty in sales, in fact quite the opposite. I feel bad for the non-tech or non-bargainers who want to get into computers and instead get hammer time from Gerry.
Gerry is a Charlatan and Master Scammer (most strong Capitalists are) but will fail primarily because people power and online sales are killing his share price.
I think even Lateline Business stopped getting this guys opinion once they released he is a confidence trickster.
As do I. I've taken 'acquaintances' to buy the computer they need in the past, and even though I often save them upwards of $1,000, it's nice to get a free lunch out of it. :P
It's just disappointing when you see an elderly person in there who wants a PC so they can communicate with family via email and they try to sell them an i5, let alone an i7 (which happens!)
@Shump - That’s assuming they didn’t make any profit on the 2k I paid and sold it to me on cost price of the laptop / ram / extended warranty. Which I doubt.
Complete waste of time.
Went into the Mt Druitt store this morning and the low end $350 model I wanted was unavailable.
The sales rep kept asking me what 'specs' i needed and trying persuade me to think I need to buy a $900 laptop, no thank you!
Thanks to the original poster of the deal - I had recently bought an Acer Aspire One Netbook for $378 at Officeworks which the hdd failed to be detected (3 days old) so I took it back for a refund on Friday and saw this deal and as of this morning I have a better spec'd Toshiba NB550D netbook that has the new AMD APU (CPU/GPU combo) so I can watch HD content with ease and play the odd 3D game when I feel (I couldn't on the Acer) - and still have great battery life for general browsing etc, also picked up bluetooth which the acer didn't have. The sound system on this little thing is great (for its size) 2 decent harman/kardon speakers on the arm rest. What the best part is though is I only paid $299.40… Happier than a pig in sh!t =D
Thanks for this post - was looking for a spare laptop for my wife so she doesn't screw up my carefully crafted desktop or laptop with her stuff! Picked up the very cheapest one available ($299) from chaddy just before they closed tonight - they had about 20 left. Very basic, but for my wife to surf the net and write emails its perfect. I paid $1600 or so in 2007 for my HP DV9000 (piece of cr@p!!) that probably will be slower than this one at a bargain price.
On the subject of Toshiba's, picked me up a TE2100 off the side of the road for the grand price of free today (I considered the stolen laptops dilema, and concluded it was too good a deal to pass up).
Psh to you guys and your new C650D's, my Pentium 4 will kick your V140 any day.
lol, hi troll. so you're a garbage collector and a coveted P4 owner. nice.
Sarcasm bro >.> and I do actually like having the laptop lol :P. Always fun to have old computers to put to use in minor/entertaining capacities. Sadly now the graphics chip is semi stuffed on it, weird patterns kept appearing on the screen, and I found a solid sharp punch on the keyboard would fix it temporarily. Though after a while the screen was turning off entirely, and progressed to not turning on at all >.>
But free is free I guess.
yeah, sounds like the inbult GPU is cactus, hence the reason why it was throw out. good to see you reusing/recycling old tech, i'm the same, hate to see it go to waste. hell, the cassette deck died on my old walkman and i still keep it for am/fm radio, lol.
needs reballing
@ShirokaZe: The reason people dislike Harvey Norman is not because of their sale tactics or their high prices (people can buy whatever they choose). What people hate about them is the way they avoid standing up to their promises and overselling to those who actually don't need certain products.
Overall they are the Telstra of the retail world…
I dont care what your partner did at HN and you clearly no nothing about this..
Even with you confessions about their scams etc. You still seem to think the only bad thing is that that don't leave people like you alone when you are trying to shop their.. You sound like a really great person..
Yeah, you have to go through hoops to return an item to HN. And if they happen to agree to return an item, it is done rather grugingly and they try to make you feel like a horrible person just because you dared to ask. What ever happened to customer service?
ShirokaZe lost all credibility when he/she said:
I guess you run that AVG Free crap too don't you?
Cant agree with all that. Both Shirokaze and magichands hit the nail on the head with some points. At least Shirokaze doesn't devolve into the "it just is" style of argument (magichands #4).
By the way, the last half of your comment is off too. I had to laugh when you said that the AVG comment voids everything else Shirokaze said.
Whilst I'm at it, AVG actually ranks low in AV comparison tests. When I say low, I mean this relatively. For free, its ok. But in reality you are better off getting bitdefender, kaspersky or f-secure. I think there are a couple other good ones too. F-secure, if you change the shop url to "US" instead of "AU", is something like $40USD/3computers for 3 years. And the improvement over AVG is more than worth $4.45USD/year.
SENSATIONALISM FTW!!
You talk about sensationalism; if saying "AVG is crap" is not sensationalist then I don't know what is. I've been using it for about 10 years on several computers and I can't say it's crap. I don't know much about AV comparison tests, all I know is I haven't had any malware/security issues in 10 years while using AVG.
You said:
At least Shirokaze doesn't devolve into the "it just is" style of argument (magichands #4).
Really? I guess you didn't read all of his comments properly then. A quote from Shirokaze above:
Here's a little fact for you […]
He/she also makes several other such assertions in his comments above.
Magichands said:
They don't care about customer satisfaction AT ALL.
Completely true.
They don't care about customer satisfaction AT ALL.
That comment doesn't need any further explanation.
Well I've supported my stance ok AVG below (mostly because hopefully it will steer people into looking for better AV). Yep, my wording was crap there.
As to the rest, I'm not going to keep posting here and argue the point, there's been enough of that so far to realise it's not going to get anyone anywhere.
That's true. On Pt3…HN has some of the most unfair, inflexible returns policies in the entire retail sector.
I had hell trying to return a set top box once because they were adamant it was working despite having glitches with it, which the salesman said was attributed to our reception. Good thing my dad is very aggressive and enforceable, always works a treat. A refund was subsequently offered after a brief tirade.
I am so sorry Magichands, you're absolutely right about every single point you've made. Despite not knowing anything about the way the company is actually run, you've successfully convinced me that Harvey Norman is out to steal your money. Not just your money, but the money of you children, homeless people, un-wed teenage mothers, retirees and flood victims. Harvey Norman's sole purpose is to screw every person in Australia over; no matter what bargains people have picked up there over the years, or in this thread alone, because even though some people got their laptops for hundreds of dollars under cost, they were still ripped off because they were offered a warranty that they didn't take.
I also thank you for your compliment. I do consider myself a decent person despite having a different opinion to yours. Not all of us can be right about everything like you, so I appreciate the integrity you have shown in saying I'm a great person.
Just a tip though now that I've finished my troll, beware of Optus because they will try to sell you an iPhone case, an internet package and insurance.
Next time you upgrade your vehicle, get upset at the salepeople when they offer you paint protection, floor mats or xenon headlights, you don't NEED any of these things and they're overpriced so they're also in with HN to try and screw you.
Next time you get sick and go to the chemist for Codral cold and flu, be sure to complain when they try sell you 5 types of vitamin supplements as well.
When you fuel your car up, don't spend an extra $2 in-store so you can get 6cents off per litre.
And when you go to Hungry Jacks/Burger King, don't give in to their hassling because upsizing to large is just going to make you fat.
Don't even get me started on loan protection on your personal loan.
Sales techniques have been around since the dawn of time and aren't unique to Harvey Norman. Every industry will use the techniques or "scams" as Magichands puts it.
While I don't have any knowledge about the returns policy side of things, you're making quite a lot of generalizations. I'm sure all HN stores go out of their way to sell $2000 laptops to old people in the exact scenario that you just mentioned since you claim it happens "regularly" in "many" stores.
If people see reasoning, instead of jumping on the HN hate bandwagon, you can actually get quite good deals out of HN salespeople, who have the final say on price at the end of the day. Ever thought of being nice and befriending the salespeople to get a good deal? Trust me, it'll get you MUCH further than going in with a snarl on your face ready to haggle. This goes for returns as well, because to the person at the desk, you're just going to be another tool that's yelled at them that day because they aren't happy their appliance isn't working. People can negative rep me all they want, but this is OzBargain, and changing your attitude could be one of the best things to do to get a bargain.
Thanks for the reply. Pretty sure I didn't once mention upselling as an issue here… Upselling and lying about what you need is completly different…
Thanks for making me laugh :-) 6 different examples on a topic I didn't even mention :-) As well as being a lovely person you also seem to have lots of spare time
Just a tip though now that I've finished my troll, beware of Optus because they will try to sell you an iPhone case, an internet package and insurance.
They take no as an answer.
Next time you upgrade your vehicle, get upset at the salepeople when they offer you paint protection, floor mats or xenon headlights, you don't NEED any of these things and they're overpriced so they're also in with HN to try and screw you.
Car salesman are widely accepted as the scum of the earth. Most agree Harvey Norman staff are equivalent.
Next time you get sick and go to the chemist for Codral cold and flu, be sure to complain when they try sell you 5 types of vitamin supplements as well.
Never, EVER happened to me.
And when you go to Hungry Jacks/Burger King, don't give in to their hassling because upsizing to large is just going to make you fat.
You're actually getting something extra for your money, and if you're hungry enough for large and small wouldn't be enough, you're stupid not to get it.
Don't even get me started on loan protection on your personal loan.
Okay, I won't.
lol!
You can say all you want, but fact of the matter is this is the story all about how my life got flipped, turned upside down and I'd like to take a minute just sit right there, I'll tell you how I became the prince of a town called Bel-Air. In West Philadelfia born and raised on the playground where I spent most of my days, chilling out, maxing, relaxing all cool; and all shooting some b-ball outside of the school when a couple of guys said 'we're up in no good' started making trouble in my neighbourhood. I got in one little fight and my mom got scared and said 'you're moving with your aunt and uncle in Bel-Air'. I whistled for a cab and when it came near the license plate said 'Fresh' and had a dice in the mirror, if anything I could say that this cab was rare, but I thought now forget it, yo home to Bel-Air. I pulled up to a house about seven or eight and I yelled to the cabby 'Yo, home smell you later'; looked at my kingdom I was finally there to settle my throne as the prince of Bel-Air.
ShirokaZe, why bother? You have made enough of a fool of yourself in this thread already.
ShirokaZe said: "People can negative rep me all they want.."
Yeah, you sure got your ass negged. Glad you liked it. I did.
It's funny how you're comparing the retail price with OW, who says they're the cheapest? How about you compare with msy, centrecom or budgetpc?
Still, 40% off a slightly higher retail HN price is still pretty good.
Yeah, dude it is just a matter of time before HN dies. Not just the mortal emperor of this evil corporation, but the very foundations of its retailing practices and operations. Greater consumer awareness and the new paradigm in online retailing is already starting to chip away at his cash cow monopoly.
Can't wait.
No more annoying ads to jolt me awake late at night when I'm dozing off in front of the TV.
Has anyone else actually tried to return something to HN? They are total bastards about it.
Gerry Harvey can suck it up.
Think of all the small local electronics retailers that his chain knocked off when they started. Fork him, whinging like a little sook about online sales and GST.
Times change Gerry Harvey and your time is up.
Isn't the jingle to his ads THE MOST ANNOYING YOU HAVE EVER HEARD?!?!
He makes Franco Cozzo seem like a high-quality class A production.
I think Gerry doesn't realise that his sales methods AND his damn annoying ads are why people want him off the planet permanently.
Frankly he just comes across as a smug salesman who is grinning a lot at the public stupidity, AND he enjoys erking us with his ads.
I dunno, I'd rather the Harvey Norman jingle to DOWN DOWN…
From CNET antivirus list…
Price: Free
Operating system: Windows XP/Vista/7
Total Downloads: 353,978,943
Downloads last week: 1,242,607
Product Ranking: #1 in Antivirus Software
http://download.cnet.com/AVG-Anti-Virus-Free-Edition-2011/30…
I so solly…
I've never ever paid for antivirus. Even like back in the 90s when there was no such thing as free and antivirus in the same sentence. AVG is really good.
Still, there are ignoramuses that go to HN and pay $100 for their limited 1 year subscription to McAffable or Rorton thinking they need it for 'protection'.
Wow, well done. Number of times it's downloaded is why it's "number 1". Not because its the best. People love free stuff, so of course its downloaded a lot.
Haul your butt over to avcomparitives and you will find:
At virus detection, it's tier 2. That's still good, but as I said, there are plenty of AV programs that are better.
At Malware, it's mid-level.
At false-positives, it's one of the worst.
At complete-cleaning (removing all traces) it fails pretty hard. Gets the important bits though.
IIRC it's time to update lags others, so for new threats it's fairly poor. This may have changed by now though.
And for some reason, AVG chucked a hissy fit about the reviews of their program and it's not going to be in 2011 testing. The above are 2010 results.
Well forget about comaparison testing, are they ever fully accurate and who knows the motivation/bias/politics behind it? I am more interested in REAL-WORLD performance, and as I said before I have used AVG in real-world applications for 10 years and it hasn't let me down. Seems to be a lot of other users happy with it as well.
Actually, this was in reply to those that knocked AVG as useless or low rent.
For the average user any of the top three over at CNET will perform admirably. I don't use it myself, but it didnt get to number one on CNET by being pissweak.
AVG
Avast
Avira
Like camelgrass said, real-life average users. Ie people looking for excellent allround protection who are uninterested in a nerd-off…
All three of the above come at the all time best Ozbargain favorite price of FREE
Personally I use Avast and have for years, along with Malwarebytes. No viruses at all during that time (so ner).
just came back from HN, they've got the Toshiba L650-OK5 for $779, what do you all think?
Its an i5 with blu ray drive etc..
specs here
http://www.mytoshiba.com.au/products/notebooks/satellite/l65…
I'm looking to get either the L650-0K4 with i5 (same spec with 0K5, only black in colour) or L650-061 (AMD Quad P960 1.8hz). The i5 $779 and the AMD quad $598. AMD one has dvdrw only, no Bluray, everything else is the same spec, eg. gpu, etc.
After some research, the i5 performs better in some benchmarks, but after reading into some forums, real life performance is different story. So I think i'm gonna go ahead with AMD. almost $200 cheaper and I don't really need bluray. Plus the AMD is quad core, so it should perform better in multitasking which I might need more. I am messy. always opening new tabs, itunes, encode movie, and few other applications running, at the same time. lol.
For gaming, especially those games which doesn't use more than 2 cores, the i5 should be better in performance due to higher clock speed.
another thing, both of them appears to only have 10/100 ethernet, so no gigabit ethernet :(
Anyone else might want to add?
I bought the L650-061 AMD Quad P960 today in Auburn for $538. Very happy with it, mostly with the graphics as the i5 I saw had an intel one. This appealed to me more :)
Cheers
Well done, very good price too. Is it also from HN?
I just picked mine for $598. from HN opposite Highpoint shopping centre VIC.
Yeas jinroh, I picked mine from HN too.
The i5 is also quad core.
There's only two advantages for the OK4/5 over the AMD Quad:
1) 1gb graphics (instead of 512mb)
2) Blu-ray drive (instead of DVDRW)
I thought the two advantages were worth the extra $154 (I got the OK5 for $753 at Auburn today). If I want a Blu-Ray drive two years down the track, it'll likely cost me a somewhat similar amount of money, and it's pretty much impossible to upgrade a laptop graphics card from what I know. They're both good deals though.
My main concern about the laptop is the battery life (I have a Macbook at the moment which has a stellar battery life). See how we go.
I got OK5 from OW price match at ~720.
Want OED but couldn't find any stock in HN so OW wouldn't do a price match.
reply to hoiboy
sorry to burst your bubble but…
1) both L650/0K4 and L650/0K5 are i5 based of the Arrandale series. Which is only dual core, NOT quad core. Only the new i5 from this year (sandy bridge) are quad core.
2) L650D/061 with the AMD Quad P960 have the same graphic cards as L650/0K4. Meaning they both are 1gb graphics.
3) Intel Core i5 M 480 @ 2.67GHz is only 21% faster then AMD Phenom II P960 Quad-Core on benchmark.
Intel Core i3 380M @ 2.53GHz is only 3% faster than AMD Phenom II P960 Quad-Core on benchmark.
Performance difference on Mobile processor is not big despite the price!
1) the 21% faster i5 (dual core only) processor) in term of processing speed compared to AMD. AMD quad core on the other hand benefit from everyday multitasking, lower power consumption, memory controller (superior memory performance) and built in virtualization module. It is matter of choice really…
2) 0K4 and 0K5 have Bluray player.
so if you can justify 180 dollars (23% more compared to the price of L650D/061) for the 21% more raw computing power and a bluray ROM player (not burner).
I personally don't.. I don't need/use bluray at all
might upgrade it to a bluray burner down the track when they are cheap…
So I chose the cheaper, better processor AMD (although not necessary faster), but give a better general performance)
well this is my 2 cents anyway..
florachan, you're right - thanks for the clarification, I just re-checked my facts for the processor, and for the graphics card, the HN I was at initially had mislabelled it as 512mb - it actually shows as 1gb once I checked it last night after purchasing it (I bought both the 061 and the OK5).
Having said that, besides the BR drive (which is a personal preference), 21% faster CPU is not almost the same, that's a significant difference - I used both of them side by side last night and the OK5 was definitely faster, and the OK5's battery life was very good (haven't unplugged the 061 yet). We'll see how it works out over the next few months.
hey hoiboy
in term of battery life, it actually depends on how you use them but AMD Phenom II P960 Quad-Core should generally have a lower power usage as it only use 25W while i5 used 35W. although I not sure if it make much difference but see if you can notice a difference
AMD Phenom II Quad-Core Mobile P960 is the fastest power-optimized quad-core mobile CPU from AMD at the moment… no doubt i5 is faster… hence the premium price for i5
It is good to know that you notice OK4/5 is faster… since you have both machine, it would be interesting if you could compare and list both the Windows Experience Index from both the OK4/5 and the 061… from what I compared from the machine in Harvey Norman.
this is from my 061 machine on stock boot up
6.5 CPU
7.3 MEMORY
6.7 Graphic AERO
6.7 Graphic GAME
5.9 Hard Disk
consider quite good overall for 598 dollar especially the better memory performance … so good that I purchased two 061 laptop, one for my my sister… :p
I am guessing Harvey Norman Gordon (NSW) will have sweet FA or zero stock and rude customer service as usual ?
From my personal poor experience with Toshiba, i'd rather stay away, bought a Toshiba A200 laptop for $2000 in 2008 (top of the line at that time, T7500, HD2600, etc..) and it died on me 2 months after their one year warranty expired. What's funny is i didn't use it much, only for office and web surfing
I had an A200-psaf6a (? guessing the last bit, sold it a while ago).
I was the second owner, it still ran like a champ.
I can't believe all this junk about AVG being crap. Sure, if you're running servers or a massive network, you'll want something more but AVG has never failed me.
Then again maybe it's just that I use common sense on the internet. I only have AVG on the PC I use for torrents, and I have no anti-virus on any other PC. It's been this way for 10+ years. If you use common sense and don't click on iffy links, you don't need anti-virus. I've had one virus on my laptop, and that was when my moronic cousin was looking at porn. Sweet.
This is exactly what I predicted and not because I can see into the future. HN has done this same dishonest practise for years on a number of their "super sales".